A former cheerleading captain from Royal Holloway, University of London, is aiming high after launching a new team.

The Royals Cheerleading Club’s first showcase event at the sports centre of Fullbrook School in New Haw delighted its proud founder, Amber Hillier.

Amber, 24, was captain of Royal Holloway’s Tomcats cheerleading team but since graduating has been pursuing her dream of creating a new cheerleading club.

The former drama and creative writing student said: “I started running some sessions in May 2012 just to see how it would take off in the area.”

She began with classes at Weybourne Gymnastics Club, near Brooklands but interest quickly grew and the group began training at Addlestone Leisure Centre, in Fullbrook School’s hall and at Spelthorne Gymnastics Club in Ashford.

The group trained through the summer before the first competitive event in Bournemouth in September last year, facing other cheerleading teams with technical routines set to music. The group split into two teams this year, performing cheers, dances and stunts, with two stunt teams performing short, acrobatic routines.

The team already has around 50 members – a level one group of eight to 11-year-olds, level two eight to 14s and level three for over-12s.

Amber is not surprised that the club has taken off.

“I was really passionate about it and knew that other people would become passionate about it,” she said.

The showcase on December 7 was an opportunity for the team’s routines to be performed in front of family and friends.

Amber said: “It went really well, considering that a lot of the members are really new.

“Some of the level ones had only been with us four weeks and learning just an hour a week, so they learned a whole routine in just four hours.

“The high-level students learned some really difficult stunts in just two months.”

Cheer competitions are held all over the country and Amber intends to take a few scalps at a competition in Worcester in February – maybe even those of her former team, The Tomcats.

“I just hope we score better than in Bournemouth,” she said.

“A lot of the teams we are up against are at a high level so to be near them, or match them, or even beat them would be absolutely amazing,” she added.